Perception
by jellydonut16
Summary: AU: A string of grisly murders has left the city of Konoha in a state of unrest. With no trace of the murderer, dubbed the 'Silent Killer', and little to go on, it's up to Naruto and Sasuke to find the killer before he or she wreaks more carnage in Konoha. Vermin only ever come out at night. NarutoxHinata SasukexKarin. Not for the faint-hearted.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.  
Warning: Graphic content such as gore, violence, and rape. Not for the faint-hearted. Viewer discretion is advised.**

**O N E**

"Okay, so what do we have here?" Uzumaki Naruto asks, gingerly taking a sip of the black coffee the Konoha Police Department provided out of a plain white ceramic mug. He'd woken up early on call; some kid walking his dog had apparently found a dead body in the park, hidden in some shrubbery around the edges of the forestry that bordered it.

Uchiha Sasuke— who'd shown up a mere ten minutes before the former, knit his eyebrows in stress. "It's a homicide, alright… and a pretty gruesome one at that. Inuzuka's already puked his breakfast, but I haven't seen the body yet."

"Then what're we waiting for? Let's go!" The blond Uzumaki exclaimed, cerulean blue eyes shining with curiosity, tugging at his raven-haired partner's hand.

A team of detectives and investigators were already at the scene, scoping the surrounding areas for any trace of the killer. "Calm down, dobe. Suit up first," Sasuke chided, motioning Naruto to the sickly-looking Inuzuka Kiba, sitting on the hood of his police-issued Toyota.

"Hey, Kiba!" Naruto cheerfully greeted his co-worker and childhood friend, his demeanor an oxymoron to the case at hand.

Kiba glanced up at the two and handed them two white paper suits and overshoes from the cardboard box on the hood beside him. His usually tan skin seemed more pale than usual; the kid was spooked, alright.

"You okay?" Concerned blue eyes eyed weary brown ones. Naruto leaned against the car, setting his mug atop its roof, turning to his friend in slight worry. He's never seen Kiba so… _shaken_ before.

The Inuzuka visibly shook whatever thought he had in mind away, pulling the misshapen box over his lap. "Whoever killed that girl is a fucking psycho," he growled out, voice hoarse from all the prior retching. He glanced up at Naruto, and momentarily, at Sasuke. "Hope you two have stomachs of steel."

The two immediately ripped open the plastic coverings of the paper suits, pulling them on in haste. Even when they were quite a number of meters away from the crime scene, the scent of rotting flesh permeated the area, sending a wave of unease in the normally laid-back blond.

Naruto was a fresh recruit, with promising hopes and dreams to one day follow in the footsteps of his father. A lot of people underestimated him, but over time, he'd been able to prove himself worthy as both a police officer and as a person in general.

They immediately made their way to the dense shrubbery where the corpse was found. The rancid stench only grew stronger and stronger; the Uchiha beside him had noticeably blanched. A few detectives were currently taking pictures of the corpse and the surroundings for examination later.

Over the corpse stood a familiar pinkette, a notebook and pen in her latex gloved hand. "Sakura-chan," Naruto said, making his way over to her, only to stop short once he got a proper look at the victim. "W-What happened here?"

She turned to him, expression grim. Sasuke followed, his pale features contorting to one of disgust as he wrinkled his nose at the nauseatingly pungent scent.

The victim lay on her back, scratched arms and legs splayed out over the earth. Her matted brown hair was left in a haphazardly tied ponytail, partially hidden within the confines of a Nike baseball cap, her hair going through the hole of the cap. Dead and sunken green eyes stared at him—right _through _him— as her face contorted into an expression of horror, probably dying while screaming for help. Most part of her face, however, had been bludgeoned in, leaving the face almost unrecognizable and crusted in dry blood.

The corpse itself was bloated and covered with maggots, filling her barely indistinguishable mouth, nostrils, and feeding on the victim's eyes. The victim's grey tank top had been ripped from the middle, top-to-bottom, the jagged edges of the tainted fabric dipping into the mass of entrails gouged out of her abdomen, inviting a swarm of flies to feast upon her. The corpse's skin tone bordered blue and gangrene, swelling against the confines of her once-fitting black knee-length jogging pants. Her Nike running shoes were cast astray in the event of the struggle; one sent tumbling a few feet away from her.

Naruto turned away from the sight, nausea creeping up his throat. He staggered a few feet away from the scene, the urge to vomit overwhelming his senses.

"She was a jogger," Sasuke spoke up, trying to suppress the lump threatening to force itself out of his mouth. "Got any clue to who she was yet?"

Sakura shook her head, sending tendrils of pink hair to fall down her face; her emerald eyes were etched with worry. "No, but we're working on it. Judging from the growth of the maggots, she's been here quite a while. It's hard to believe that someone just found her now."

The Uchiha walked up to the corpse. "She still had the bottom half of her clothes on; it probably wasn't a rape-murder, then," he deduced, narrowing his onyx gaze at the victim.

"Either way, there was a motive." Naruto said.

The pinkette sighed, "Hyūga extracted a few items strewn around her a few minutes ago. It seems like the one who did this wasn't after her money. I mean, her wallet was full of cash, but she had no IDs, driver's license, or any credit cards with her."

Sasuke snorted, "Tch, of course— no petty robber would do _this _much to his victim if he was only after her money. Why go for the guts instead of the heart?"

"…I'd say it was premeditated." Naruto added, earning a nod from the other two beside him.

Sakura beckoned her assistant, Sai, to help her bring the body back to the coroner's in order to prepare the corpse for the autopsy. "Sai, be careful with her arms!" She scolded, handling the victim's left leg along with the help of two other officers who had been on stand-by.

Naruto grimaced slightly at the sight of the corpse being placed within the confines of a body-bag. Rigor mortis wasn't exactly a pleasant sight to see, especially with the victim's innards exposed in such a morbid manner.

Kakashi, the chief police officer in Konoha, walked up to the Uzumaki and the Uchiha. "It's about time we head back. There's not much we can do here now, since we're having the scene cleaned up. Everything that needs testing is already on its way back to headquarters. Sasuke,"

The raven-haired boy glanced up at him, a thin black eyebrow raised in inquiry.

"You and Naruto head over to the mortuary and find out what you can. Then report back to me,"

"Hai,"

"Sure thing, Kakashi-sama!"

Within several minutes, the two had made their way back to their car and got in after discarding their overshoes and paper suits. Silence fell over them for a few moments as they let the situation sink in as a way to 'sober' them up before they made their way to the coroner's.

* * *

"Who the fuck would do such a thing, teme?" Naruto asked, his normally booming voice unusually hushed and barely heard over the sound of _Def Leppard _music playing through the stereo.

"Beats me, dobe. But whoever did this must've had quite a grudge on her,"

"Hmm… possibly a jilted lover?"

"…_Maybe_. But we can't make assumptions yet. The victim hasn't even been identified,"

"No, duh. Her face was bludgeoned in beyond recognition. She didn't even look _human_—"

"Shut up. And have respect for the dead."

Naruto instantly felt guilty. The woman died an agonizing death; this did nothing to alleviate the situation. "…Sorry 'bout that. Foot in mouth syndrome,"

"Sai is rubbing off on you, then," Sasuke deadpans, pulling into the underground parking of the Konoha General Hospital. He parks it in a slot relatively near the entrance to the elevators that lead up to the first floor of the hospital and shut off the ignition.

The pair exited the car and go up the elevator to the first floor of the hospital; the morgue would be at the very back of the hospital.

As they stalked down the washed white corridors, there were rows of bright yellow plastic chairs lining the walls. It was, perhaps, the only color in the area. Naruto shuddered; he hated hospitals. He hated how clean and plain and boring it was. He hated how it smelt of sterilizing cleaning agents and how the place was an absolute paradox.

Are you sick? Go to a place filled with people _just _as sick (if not more) in order to get better!

_Seriously_.

Sasuke pushed through the faded teal double-doors with 'Mortuary' written on a plain white plaque over it in bold black letters. There sat a bored-looking teenager behind a desk, currently busying herself with her phone. The gold nametag above her chest read: **'Hanabi'**. Long brown hair covered half the teen's face as ivory eyes met theirs through a dull half-lidded gaze before widening in recognition.

"Naruto-san! What're you doing here?" The girl asked, sitting up straight on her desk, setting her phone down to one side.

The aforementioned blonde's eyes widened. "Hanabi? I could ask you the same, dattebayo! What're you doing here in the _morgue_?" He leant in and looked side-to-side as if checking if someone were eavesdropping before _loudly _whispering, "Ne, does Hinata-chan know you're here?!"

Hanabi rolled her eyes, "Of course she does. I'm working as an intern for the hospital so I can get extra credit in college. The perks are unbelievable," she sighed dreamily, before gazing at Sai— who was in the midst of pulling out the victim's dead body onto a steel gurney.

Naruto's face flushed red, "You're too young for him!"

The girl crossed her arms over her chest and puffed her cheeks at the blond, "I can dream, can't I? Plus, age is just a _number_,"

"Yeah, and jail is just a room," Naruto grumbled under his breath, shoving his hands deep into his jeans' pockets.

Sasuke hit the blond over the head, "Stop wasting time, dobe! We have a homicide to investigate."

"Ow! Okay, okay… Don't need to be such a tight ass, teme— hey!"

Another whack on the head.

"Hn." The Uchiha rolled his obsidian eyes before making his way to the glass double-doors that led to the examination room, surrounded by rows and rows of freezers meant for corpses built into the grey tiled walls.

Sakura was already busying herself with tagging the corpse. Sai grabbed a camera out of her purse and handed it to her. She automatically began to take pictures of the corpse from every possible angle, top-to-bottom.

Sasuke was about to go in before a pinkette had unceremoniously stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Stay right there!" She half-yelled out, pointing an accusatory finger at the Uchiha. She set the camera down on one of the unoccupied gurneys and made her way out of the room.

"Where's your protective gown? And your overshoes? _And _your mask? Hanabi!" She exclaimed, panicking over the fact that someone had nearly gone into the room without the proper protective attire. _Don't they know how contagious and diseased dead bodies are?!_

"On it!" The teenager replied, standing up from her desk and pulling out two sets of hospital green protective gowns, overshoes and sanitary masks from a shelf behind her and handing it over to the officers. Sakura had managed to produce two pink nose clips from her pocket, handing it to the pair.

"You're going to need these," she says, looking a tinge bit sheepish at the autopsy they'll be witnessing first-hand. It was an unlucky prospect for those who were faint-hearted or who had weak stomachs.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at it before putting it on his nose. The two officers put their sanitary gear on and entered the examination room, the smell of rancid flesh still permeating the room though not to the extent of how strong the odor was prior. The nose clips significantly helped that factor.

Sai was at the foot of the corpse, jotting down what the victim was wearing before taking measurements. Sakura handed them a blue box of what seemed to be latex gloves. Naruto and Sasuke took a pair each and pulled them on as the pinkette resumed taking pictures of the victim.

She briefly paused her actions and examined the corpse, a grimace on her face. "I'll have to cut the top off, but the rest, I'm sure I can pull off."

Naruto took a quick glance at the row of countless bodies on identical stainless steel examination tables, a shudder making its way down his spine. They looked identical, too, save for the multicolored tags on their left foot's big toe. They were covered head-to-toe with white plastic sheets. It all looked foreboding as fuck to the blond.

One by one, Sakura began to place the articles of clothing into an evidence bag to be sent to the lab later for analysis. "I didn't expect you guys to be here this quickly," the pinkette admitted, placing the pair of bedraggled white ankle socks into another bag. They'd have to check if the soil within the grooves in the victim's socks were the same as the soil in the park that surrounded the victim. It was to discern if the victim was killed in another location and then moved to where they'd found her, or not.

She gingerly pulls the socks off, taking mental note of the thin white line on the victim's swollen ankle. It was a fully healed scar.

"You know this type of thing takes a while, right?" She continued, sealing the bag and handing it to Sai. She grabbed what seemed to be a thin metal rod with a miniscule scoop on it. Sakura began to run the scoop for the possible DNA samples and substances underneath the victim's nails to be tested and analyzed. She placed it in a small plastic tray, tapping the scoop on the edge every once in a while in case the gunk stuck to it. If they were lucky, they could get a trace of the killer's DNA too, and everything would be a lot easier.

Sasuke leant back against the cool glass of the windows by the doors, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the body in slight mortification. _Why the hell hasn't anyone considered closing her eyes _or_ mouth yet?!_

So he voiced his thoughts exactly. Sai gave him a pleasantly fake smile. "The victim's body is already too stiff and bloated to move or alter any further. If we forced her lockjaw shut, chances are, it'd cause more damage to the body than good. Just getting her in the bodybag was hard enough, Sasuke-kun."

The latter sneered at him, only to have the former brush him off with that fake closed-eye smile of his. Naruto chuckled under his breath at his partner's evident irritation.

Sakura took her camera out and began taking more pictures of the victim as proof. "Sai, get me a copy of the official forms I'll have to fill out. It's right there, in that folder by the microscope."

He smiled at her. "Sure thing… ugly,"

The scalpel Sakura threw at Sai narrowly missed the latter's head by a few mere centimeters, embedding itself into the concrete wall. The assistant never missed a beat, pulling the scalpel out before running it under the water and sterilizing it before he put it back on the steel tray perched atop the trolley by the head of the victim Sakura was currently photographing. He then retrieved the documents from a red folder and attached a copy to a clear clipboard, setting it on the stainless steel counter for later perusal.

_Typical Sai._

Naruto couldn't help but snigger at the sight, earning him a pointed glare from Sakura as Sasuke concealed an ever-growing smirk. The blond shortly stopped laughing.

Sakura cleared her throat, drawing everyone's attention. "Okay, so as you can see here," she pointed at the victim's beaten in face. "She suffered blunt trauma with a blunt, round-edged object around the same diameter as the one on a sledgehammer, possibly postmortem since her mouth was open upon death from these,"

She guided her latex tipped fingers to the victim's open stomach. "These lacerations, likely inflicted with something with a thin blade, used in quick successions the moment after the murderer tore her tank top apart. These cuts on her hands imply that there was some sort of struggle, but," she winced. "It didn't last very long. There are no bruises on her arms, which meant that the killer didn't bother restraining her _at _all."

"Wait, what's this?" Sasuke asked, pointing at a small series of stitches above where the victim's heart should be. The pinkette knotted her eyebrows together in confusion.

"They—they're stitches..?" She asked more than stated, befuddled at the newfound clue.

The stitches were done over a deep cut, even cutting the victim's breast partially open. The skin puffed angrily against each stitch, nearly concealing it entirely. It was infected, at that.

"Do you think they're from the killer? The wound hasn't shown any signs of healing at all," queried the Uzumaki, leaning in to take a closer look.

Sakura took a pair of scissors of the tool tray and began to undo the stitches one by one. Once she was done, she took two picks in order to pry two sides of the swollen flesh open. They grimaced at the horrible, horrible smell that attacked their senses, even with the help of their nose clips. Sai audibly coughed several times, turning away from the body.

Naruto began dry-heaving, making his way over to the steel trashcan, awaiting the bile to escape his lips as he sunk to his knees. He started retching his stomach's contents into the rubbish bin, cerulean eyes squinted shut as tears brimmed through his eyelids and ran down his sunkissed cheeks.

"Oi, dobe, you alright?" Sasuke asked, bringing Naruto out of his nausea-stricken state.

"Naruto, you want to take a seat first?" Sakura asked softly, voice laced with motherly concern.

The blond defiantly shook his head, reaching out for something sturdy to grab on to help himself up. To his surprise, his partner actually reached out to help.

Naruto gave Sasuke a cheeky grin, "Thanks for helping me up, teme. I'm touched,"

The latter rolled his eyes before muttering a "take it easy" under his breath as the Uzumaki took several moments to compose himself.

"…What the _hell_?" The pinkette blurt out, grabbing a pair of tweezers to extract something out of the victim's chest.

Chills arose everyone's spine as she pulled out a cassette tape in a Zip-Loc bag out of where her heart should've been. It was covered in rotten congealed blood, dripping off in slops of jelly-like blobs onto the body of the victim. Sai immediately retrieved an empty steel tray for her to put the evidence on it. The medical examiner took another look in, before sadly shaking her head. "The heart's missing."

_That put the case in a whole new direction, then, dattebayo! _Naruto thought to himself, his blue eyes widening a fraction.

Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest. "So we're in black market territory now, huh?"

"It's possible. People extract clean and healthy organs from unwilling victims, only to sell them to rich clients through the black market for big money," Naruto stated, a grim expression on his face as his voice grew hoarse from vomiting earlier. "But that wouldn't justify why the killer had to bash her face in, right? And rip apart her stomach!"

Sakura frowned slightly, "I better check the rest of the body if any other parts are missing." She cracked her knuckles as she began to inspect the entrails, pulling them out on another steel tray. "Her body's too fucked up to do the Y-incision properly anymore. But still, we'll need to lower down the swelling so we can inspect her body more thoroughly. Kami, it's a miracle that her organs haven't been picked up by any scavengers out in the forest yet,"

Some 'miracle' that was, alright.

She winced at the sight of the maggots squirming around the crevices of the rotting intestines, making her own stomach churn. "Normally, people would go for stealing parts like the kidney, since it's often hard to find organ donors in many parts of the world. So where do you turn to next? The black market,"

"I guess that gives us a new lead," Naruto replied, peering at the corpse momentarily before turning away.

"I'll extract a few DNA samples and see if I can find her on any of the databases here in Konoha," Sakura says, prodding precociously at the parts with two long steel rods akin to chopsticks. "Obviously, her intestines and stomach were ruptured; her stomach got the brunt of it, though. Kami, it looks like it got blown up."

Silence settled in the room as Sakura began checking the remains. She'd gotten the corpse x-rayed earlier and sent samples of the maggots over to the lab for analysis. Now, she'd have to make an incision to let the body's fluids and gases exit the body so the swelling of the corpse could go down. The stitches she'd removed earlier slightly alleviated the swelling around that particular area, but not by much.

After, she'd weigh each and every part individually, making a note that the victim's heart was missing. Then, Sakura would have to use an oscillating saw to open the skull after placing the victim's head underneath a stabilizing block.

Sasuke kept his expression stoic, but he couldn't deny the fact that this was quite an unnerving thing to witness, just for the sake of finding the woman's killer and bringing her to justice.

Sakura set the remnants down for Sai to weigh. She then motioned to the corpse's womanhood. "There are no signs of vaginal or anal penetration, but we can't be too sure. 'Course, I'll swab it down and send it to the lab for testing anyway."

After more testing, Sakura finally turned on the high-powered oscillating saw to be used on the woman's skull. Naruto couldn't bear to watch, so he walked out.

* * *

Sasuke and Naruto sat on a bench in front of the convenience store across the hospital, not a word from the other. They needed a few mutual moments of silence to—to _think_ clearly, get their heads straight.

On the flip-side, Sai and Sakura finally managed to pull the victim's eyes close and force the corpse's jaw shut, reducing it to a not-so terrifying— yet mentally scarring nonetheless— grimace. Naruto gulped, staring at the bottle of water in his hand. Sasuke had the precious evidence with him within a plastic bag.

They should be in the car on the way back right now.

The Uchiha straightened his posture on the bench momentarily before standing up. "C'mon, dobe. It's about time we get back."

Sure enough, the incident room back in the station was buzzing with newfound evidence and theories. Naruto slumped down on one of the seats as Sasuke made his way up to the whiteboard, listing all of the information the pair had gotten from the autopsy since he was the only one of the two who'd managed to keep a straight face and witnessed all of the events of the postmortem.

Naruto produced the white plastic bag containing the tape from his jacket's inner pocket, forcing himself to get up and hand it over to Kakashi.

"They found this in the body, where the heart was supposed to be, dattebayo," he said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. Kakashi peered at it curiously before pulling it out. The Zip-Loc bag containing the cassette was sealed in another Zip-Loc bag. After all, the original bag itself is also evidence, right?

"The heart was the only part missing. Sakura-chan combed through everything. Sasuke-teme and I suspect it has something to do with the black market,"

"The black market, huh?" The silver-haired chief echoed, contemplating in his thoughts before turning to everyone else in the crowded room just as Sasuke finished writing on the board containing all information at hand.

"Alright," he spoke up, drawing the attention of all the attendants in the room. "Let's start."

The meeting was on-case and straight to the point. There was no time for any grievances (or vomiting); there's a murder case to be solved.

Analysis results from the forensics team came a bit later. There were dental records that matched the victim's, along with a matching blood sample that matched with the ones Konoha General Hospital had.

The body was confirmed as Arakaki Nana, a twenty-three year old freelance model. She would've been twenty-four if she were alive right now. Analysis stated that she'd been dead for roughly three weeks, judging from the growth of bacteria and the maggots that covered her body. The summer's heat played a factor in the rapid growth of the maggots, turning them into adult flies.

Hyūga Neji called the deceased's parents earlier; they didn't even notice that she was missing, let alone that she was dead. Apparently, Arakaki rarely called her parents, having run away from them two years before to pursue a career in acting against their wishes.

They expected her to be a lot of things, but a parent's worst nightmare— dead.

Since they didn't know much about her daughter's usual daily routines, they suggested that they ask Arakaki's best friend: Sato Haruka. Kakashi assigned Naruto and Sasuke to deal with the inquiry as soon as possible. But for now, they needed to discover the contents of what was in that tape before they could proceed any further.

Aburame Shino brought in an old 80's-style stereo he'd dug up from the building's attic, covered in dust and cobwebs. He wiped down the dirt that had solidified in layers over the past, say, ten or twenty years? They could only hope that the stereo still fucking worked, or there'd be more time wasted trying to find another one.

The chief propped the stereo on the chair and carefully pulled the cassette tape out of the two bags before slipping it in the cassette player. His fingers lingered over the buttons that hovered below it, their symbols having faded over time. He pressed the second button.

Eventually, the stereo came to life, the audio slightly cracking over its lack of use over the years.

It was the sound of a woman panting, as if trying to recover her breath from sort of strenuous activity. **"Hey, stranger,"** the woman said, a friendly tone in her chirpy voice. **"Nice day out today, huh?"**

Footsteps. The sound of footsteps treading over hard dirt, crushing occasional pieces of gravel. Was it the killer?

It was the distinct sound of a workman's boots, and whomever walking certainly had a heavy step.

"**H-Hey," **the girl spoke, a tinge of nervousness in her tone. **"Wh-What're you doing?! Get away from me, you psycho— **_**AAH!**_**"**

The anguished screams filled the incident room as everyone felt tremors slithering down their spines. It was fucked up. They could even hear the sound of the blade used to cut her open piercing her flesh and rupturing her insides.

Several subordinates ran out of the room at different points, the sound of retching heard down the hallway.

"**Please! Please, stop! Have m-mercy! **_**Aah!**_**" **The woman pleaded, ceasing when the sound of a blunt object came in contact with what most likely was her face.

Her nose cracked and broke—_ shattered_, upon impact, rendering her silent. But still, they could hear the ravaging and the stabbing… yet the killer still said nothing. He (_or _she) still hadn't spoken a Kami-damned work. And it frustrated all of them to no end.

They were dealing with a sick fuck, alright.

The tape came to an abrupt halt, engulfing the room in silence.

Kakashi cleared his throat after several moments, breaking the tense and overwhelming silence that consumed them. "Alright, people. Let's take ten, then, we meet back in the briefing room." He said, turning to the blond and the raven-haired boy.

"Naruto; Sasuke— come with me," he commanded, striding out of the room as if what he'd just heard on that fucking cassette tape didn't faze him. Not in the slightest damn bit.

Sasuke himself felt light-headed. It was like witnessing Arakaki come to life only to die before them in person, yet unable to do anything about it. He clenched his fists as he and the blond sullenly trudged out of the room while the others tried to recuperate from the wave of nausea and sickness that had washed over them spilling out into the hall as some rushed to the general direction of the comfort rooms.

The police chief walked down the hall, his footsteps echoing throughout the corridor as their colleagues became more and more distanced. Though the police department itself wasn't exactly the definition of aesthetically pleasing, it served its purpose. Faded navy blue wall paper torn in some parts, creaky and aged wooden floorboards, and randomly placed filing cabinets and drawers out in the hallway— it was far from neat-looking, but it was _actually_ very organized. All police officers worked quite efficiently, spite of the wreckage they left behind their paths.

The trio walked up to an old mahogany door with a single window on the upper half, the room within hidden using a bland grey drawstring curtain. Kakashi pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the room, ushering them in.

The room was no better than the hallway outside it. Stacks and stacks of case files lined up the cream-colored walls, a few folders strewn across the wooden floor. The filing cabinets were overflowing with papers, and a drawer was left partially open. Nonetheless, the chief's desk was ironically very tidy, and was free from clutter. A copy of Icha-Icha Paradise was neatly tucked under a case folder on his desk, away from any prying eyes.

Kakashi motioned for them to sit on either of the two chairs in front of his desk as the former shut the door and locked it.

"Alright, so tonight, I'm going to have you two track down Sato Haruka. We've already got some info on her; she works as a bartender in Go-Go Sparkle bar in downtown Konoha, seven to nine." He slid a photograph over to them of Sato. She was a pretty young woman in her early twenties who had platinum blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes.

Naruto picked the photograph up, glazing his eyes over it momentarily before hurriedly handing it back to Kakashi, lest he conjure up impure and lustful thoughts. He felt guilty for even having to do that, especially since he was already engaged. But he was a man, after all. No matter _how _many times Sai tried to deny it.

He was 100% _man_.

If anyone was dickless, it was the alabaster bastard, Sai, himself! Kami, what the _hell _does Hanabi see in him?

Sasuke's onyx eyes flickered over it momentarily, memorizing key features of the woman in the picture before prompting Kakashi to continue.

"Try to find out more about Arakaki Nana. See if she had any enemies, anyone who could have had a motive to kill her. Her hobbies, daily routines. The usual. Then report back to me."

Naruto and Sasuke simultaneously nodded. The former then spoke up, "What do you think about the tape, dattebayo?"

Kakashi sighed, half his face hidden within a sanitary mask. "It must be like his schtick, his trademark, his signature. Chances are he'll strike again. He left no trace, nothing. People like these… they don't stop unless they get caught."

Sasuke frowned at the thought. "...Then what do you make out of the missing heart? Could it have something to do with the black market? Demonic rituals or sacrifices?"

"Cannibalism," Naruto threw in as an afterthought.

"Possibly, or it can just be some kind of trophy or keepsake. _But_ we can't be sure until you two find out more about the victim."

Naruto stood up, pumping his fist in the air with determination. "We'll crack this case in no time, dattebayo!"

* * *

**Hope the postmortem wasn't _too _amateurish. Leave a review and let me know what you think. :) Would you guys ship SaixHanabi?**

**~jellydonut16~**


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